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Currently listening: Bill Evans, The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961 (Live) ♫. Of the many glorious performances on this record, perhaps the most glorious is “I Loves You, Porgy.” Heartbreakingly beautiful … and all the time the tiny audience is chattering away in the background. I don’t blame them — there was no way for them to know that one of the definitive recordings in jazz history was being made right before them — but I just want to teleport into the room to scream “SHUT UUUUUUPPPP.”
After you listen to “I Loves You, Porgy” a few times, go back one more time and listen just to the bassist, Scott LaFaro. He was a great genius, and would die in a car accident eleven days later, at the age of twenty-five.
Listening to: Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles ♫
I linked to this before, I think, but I continue to listen obsessively to Alec Goldfarb’s new record Fire Lapping at the Creek — which is, let the listener beware, microtonal blues. Which is crazy, except that blues blues has microtonal elements. What a record. ♫
I am aware that microtonal jazz-blues might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I love the new Alec Goldfarb record. ♫
Currently listening: Danish String Quartet, Last Leaf. One of my most-listened-to records of the past five years. ♫
Recent listening: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s wondrous Fifth Symphony. ♫
Playing this morning: Khruangbin’s A LA SALA. ♫
I love to see this terrific profile of Khruangbin, one of my favorite current bands, but I miss the days when listening to Khruangbin felt like a secret pleasure that you didn’t really want to share widely. ♫